Kate Moss = Fashion and must have

While Madonna held her collection for H&M, we will still have to wait months to discover the collection of Kate Moss for Topshop.


While waiting, one can visit the site of the English shop company which puts on line mini-documentary on the "model-star apprentice-designer". The podcast, taken again on youtube was filmed during a working session of the model in the Topshop workshops.


Classy as hell, Kate Moss is obviously having fun and does not hesitate to deliver her opinion or to comment on the models. We also learn that some from the 80's clothes : jean, jackets, bags… were/are the starting points of the collection.


Seen in the English Vogue of April, the first parts shows cool models easy to wear, glam and very inspired of the Seventies. A perfect collection for holidays.
Costumes shorts, flowered dresses, printed trousers and stripes are fixed under hat...


Four annual collections are provided by a two year old contract that the English rumour estimates at 3 million pounds. The date of launching may be on May 1 in England. In Paris, it is the following day, at Colette, that we will be able to discover it, right before New York, at Barneys. On March 8, one evening with the designer star is programmed in the department store of Manhattan.




To learn more :
www.topshop.com

I LOVE VIKTOR & ROLF

In their beginning Viktor & Rolf were laughed at, or at least misunderstood, when they were explaining that their vision of fashion would be closer to contemporary art, than couture.
Today Viktor & Rolf are critically acclaimed and every medium needs to create a buzz around them, if they want to stay in. That is definitely because Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren are really talented artists, and therefore fascinating.

I know their artwork and design from a very long time, before flowerbomb, before the Tori Amos’ show, and of course before H&M. Thus so as to get rid of the "frustration" I feel around them getting mainstream, I will try to give them the credit they deserve and explain my vision of their art, with a long and decent post on that blog.

But first thank you Viktor & Rolf for fascinating me.

Tori Amos

In fact those designers have well integrated that the boundary between fashion, design, architecture and fashion is blurred. This can be first seen in the their physical resemblance. They consider themself as a single designer, in the direct line of contemporary artist such as Gilbert and George for example, who they are often compared with. Both born in 1969, as they pretend, in the Netherlands, life put them in the same class at the Arnhem Academy. Since then, Viktor&Rolf have been rethinking what fashion and art should be, mixing absurd element, constantly playing with clothes and fabrics, inventing real shows, and fascinating objects, or visuals of their shop.

Milan shop windows.

Viktor & Rolf made their first trip to Paris with Le Cri Néerlandais, a group of Dutch fashion modernists who were said to be the new Antwerp Six. After the disbandment of the group, Victor & Rolf carried on together, and were launched with remarkable success at the art and fashion festival in Hyères, where they won three prizes. That was in 1993.

The following year, they made their debut at the L'Hiver de L'Amour couture exhibition in Paris. But it was seven years before Viktor & Rolf produced their first commercial collection, Stars and Stripes. In between, they have refined their style with ballooning silhouettes, layered collars and experiments with tuxedos. And from having originally said they wanted to create everything out of nothing, their predilection for sampling fashion history is growing stronger: Dior's starched New Look is traceable in an ironically stiff Barbie skirt in Bells (2000), Balenciaga's cape silhouette is used in Black Hole (2001), and YSL's Le Smoking pops up here and there. Viktor & Rolf celebrated their tenth anniversary as fashion designers in 2003. However making money was necessary so as to have the chance to continue creating, in order to survive. In that context and open to any form of creation, their perfume “FlowerBomb” came out and has been a commercial success. L’Oréal helped them to make that product reality. In 2003 again, they increased their output and myth, moving into menswear.

In 2004, they moved again to the art field, exhibiting in Tokyo and Stockholm. And that is in 2006 that they became stars when they collaborated with H&M presenting a mini-collection around the topic of marriage. That was the first time H&M was selling a wedding dress. The wedding between art and fashion, the wedding between two individuals becoming "the single designer" they are...When one starts a sentence in an interview the other one finishes it, performing again, or just trying to make fun of the asker, as an Andy Warhol would have done...

At the same time of the presentation of the H&M collection and in a logical way, they launched their first perfume for men : "Antidote". The presentation was a real show, where Rufus Wainwright was invited to sing. We can remember that Tori Amos was also invited to one of their haute couture show. The launch show for "Antidote" was fascinating since it was orchestrated around a ballet of men wearing tuxedos and dancing a waltz. The same concept was once again explored : two men becoming one, Viktor & Rolf being the same person, art and fashion too.

The last ready to wear show was presenting models carrying a light structure, highlighting the clothes as paintings would be in a museum.

Find a norm and Viktor & Rolf will break it. They're really worth it !

To learn more :
www.viktor-rolf.com

http://viktoretrolf.typepad.com

www.vogue.fr/viktor---rolf-recherche-createur-205.htm

www.viktor-rolf-parfums.com/_ww/_fr/index.aspx

Because we need to laugh...

Please check ou this funny website where you can also check your knowledge in art through a quick quizz ! Art or rather crap ? you decide.

http://www.modestypanel.com/artorcrap/

Ever land in design ?

An interesting project has been designed by Swiss artists : an hotel room made to move worldwide and that offers all the modern confort.

From May to October 2002, it was found on the water of Neuchâtel, built on a piles, and has been moved then to Burgdorf, installed on the roof of the "fabrik", house and workshop of the designers.

From June 2006 to August 2007, the Everland hotel will be exhibited on the roof of the "«Gallery für Zeitgenössische Kunst» of Leipzig.

When the gallery is opened all the visitors can come in and take a look at the structure, the furnitures, and everything that makes it special. When the gallery is closed, it only belongs to those that had the privilege to book it for the night.

It will then go to Paris and will stay there from September 2007 for a year, to stay on the roof of the "Palais de Tokyo".

Definitely something to discover !

More info on :

http://everland.ch/

http://www.palaisdetokyo.com/

Sixties influences...

Sixties!

Art, fashion, design, film and photography
20 January 2007 - 30 April 2007

Gemeentemuseum (Stadhouderslaan, 41, The Hague, Netherlands)

Künstler - J.C.J. van der Heyden Titel Untitled (diptych) Jahr (1966) Medium - Oil on Canvas - Größe17,9 x 24 in. / 45,5 x 61 cm. Bez

This exhibition provides a unique portrait of one of the most turbulent decades of the twentieth century: the 1960s. Alongside Dutch artists like Ger van Elk, Daan van Golden and Jan Schoonhoven, it includes work by international stars like Bill Copley, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Hamilton, Robert Morris, Dan Flavin and Andy Warhol. The combination of art, fashion, films, photography and design will give visitors an almost tangible impression of the changes, not just in the arts but also in politics and society, that took place during this colourful period. The explosion of events in the 1960s - from student riots to the first man on the moon and the Vietnam war - had a huge impact on artists and designers, triggering the emergence of a host of new movements. Created by the ever more influential art trade, movements like Pop Art, Minimal Art, Fluxus and Happening all came on the scene at this time. By presenting these movements and art forms side by side and in relation to each other, ‘Sixties!’ takes a refreshing new look at the art of the now legendary decade.

Roy Lichtenstein, American, 1923-1997: "Crying Girl," 1963; photomechanical color offset lithograph. Ackland Fund. Ackland Art Museum, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The exhibition starts in 1958 with the fall of the financially repressive Drees government, leading to an economic boom in the Netherlands which was eventually brought to an abrupt end by the oil crisis of 1973. Thanks to the rise of the mass media, which made it easier for young people to follow emerging trends, a strong youth culture developed, with its own dress codes ranging from hippy to mini. Exponents of ‘Pop Art’ like Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jim Dine and Jasper Johns were inspired by this and played with the fading distinction between high and low culture. This was not the only way in which artists and works of art lost their ‘sacred’ status during this period. Arman emptied waste bins into a series of identical Plexiglas boxes and sold them as unique objets d’art in a limited edition. In painting, Frank Stella went back to basics, eliminating all emotion, intuition and improvisation. This laid the foundation for what was to become Minimal Art. Minimal artists like Donald Judd, Dan Flavin and Carl Andre put paid to the idea of the personal signature of the artist. Their works feature simple, geometrical shapes, which were generally machine-made. Artists like Joseph Beuys and Gilbert & George went on to abandon the studio in favour of projects or happenings executed in public spaces and recorded on film. The Dutch art world was at the forefront of all these developments, but nevertheless preserved its own distinctive identity. For this reason, ‘Sixties!’ includes a separate but adjacent presentation of a number of Dutch artists, such as JCJ Vander Heyden and Anton Heyboer, but also photographers such as Gerard Fieret and Ed van der Elsken. The popular visual icons of the 1960s are many and various: it was the era of the Beatles, Flower Power, Martin Luther King and the death of J.F. Kennedy. Contemporary newsreels and documentary photographs will vividly evoke the atmosphere of this scintillating period. In the course of the 1960s, the Gemeentemuseum held a number of highly influential exhibitions, including one on Minimal Art in 1968 and The New Realists in 1964. Sixties!’ is being organised in close cooperation with the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in Hilversum and the Spaarnestad Photo archive in Haarlem.

To learn more : http://www.gemeentemuseum.nl/

The Circus of Picasso

Pablo Picasso, The Circus, (1933) - Drypoint on Monval Laid Paper.

The Pierre Gianadda Foundation of the city of Martigny, Switzerland, shows Picasso's works from a very uncommon angle. This exhibition will be shown until June 17, 2007.


Indeed, more than 300 paintings, drawings, engravings, sculptures or photographs related to the topic of the circus are to be discovered.

Pablo Picasso, The Circus, (1933) - Drypoint on Monval Laid Paper

Send in the Clowns features a selection of video and graphic works exploring the theme of the circus in historical and contemporary art. The exhibition includes pieces by Picasso, Chagall, Dame Laura Knight, along with Columbian artist Maria Fernanda Cardoso’s highly entertaining video work, Flea Circus, from the AGGV video collection. The exhibition, presented in collaboration with the National Gallery of Canada, parallels the exhibition Circus Magicus, at the Royal BC Museum.
ArtistsPicasso, Chagall, Dame Laura Knight, Cardoso, Maria Fernanda


This exhibition takes part of the understanding process of the Spanish artist born in 1881 in Malaga and who died in 1973. From the blue and pink years until engravings of the 1960 years, the circus was a recurring topic in the life of Picasso. At the turning of the 19th century, Picasso would go to the circus shows in Barcelona. In Paris, for Picasso and his friends, circus would always be an occasion to meet and explore art. But it is only at the end of 1904 and 1905 that the circus would become the central topic of the compositions of this period of his life.

Jean Paul Gaultier and Régine Chopinot

From 1983 to 1994, Jean Paul Gaultier designed the costumes of 18 ballets choreographed by Régine Chopinot. In 2007 Jean Paul Gaultier will soon celebrate his thirty years of fashion career.


For that occasion the dance costumes will leave the choreographic Center of La Rochelle to enter the collections of the museum of the Mode and the Textile. This exhition will also celebrate the precious collaboration between the fashion designer and the choreographer.


To learn more :
www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/fr/00artsdecoratifs/03programmation/page02.html#museemode


www.jeanpaulgaultier.com/